Guest essay by Eric Worrall
No harm done on this occasion – but surely this is yet another reminder the world faces more serious risks than a gentle wobble in the global temperature.
‘Sonic boom’ in Dorset blamed on ‘fireball meteor’
An “extremely rare” meteor known as a daytime fireball has been blamed for a sonic boom-type noise heard across parts of England.
People in Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Jersey reported hearing a loud bang and seeing a streak of light in the sky on Saturday afternoon.
After analysing pictures and videos, experts confirmed they showed a meteor.
They have urged people to keep an eye out and report any fallen fragments of the space rock.
Simon Proud, a specialist in aviation meteorology at the University of Oxford, captured the meteor – which appeared as a bright flash – flying over the UK on a weather satellite.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-56475333
Two larger meteors also brushed past Earth in the last week, including a 900m monster which could cause catastrophic damage if it ever strikes the planet.
Meteors are low risk potentially high impact events. The risk of a dinosaur killer, or a lesser large impactor which causes widespread damage without shattering the biosphere, is very low. But as the residents of Chelyabinsk discovered in 2013, even a small meteor can shake up your day.
Another notable event was the East Mediterranean Event, a nuclear scale airburst caused by a meteor which struck the atmosphere on June 6th 2003. The event occurred during the middle of a heated confrontation between India and Pakistan. Concerns were expressed that if the meteor had struck 3000 miles further East, over the India / Pakistan border, it might have been mistaken for a nuclear first strike.
The sad thing is the possibility of a Tunguska scale meteor randomly destroying a major city or even triggering a devastating nuclear exchange is a risk we could actually afford to address – at least to the extent of funding more surveillance.
The following is my favourite meteor video – high quality footage captured in Lapland.
Mind you, Jersey is not in England. It’s not even in the UK.
We had too many of these dangerous extraterrestrial intruders, don’t need another killer virus
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019asbi.book..419K/abstract
( ward k+iller sent my comment to moderation)
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019asbi.book..419K/abstract
It is part of the British Isles though. A lot of people are confused at the difference between Great Britain, UK, and the British isles.
Great Britain = the mainland that England, Scotland,and Wales sit on. Also includes Channel Isles, Anglesey, IoW and the little islands that surround Scotland. Does not include Northern Ireland, Irish Republic, IoM and Jersey.
UK = Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
British Isles = UK, Republic of Island, Jersey, IoM. Everything in that area.
For simplicity, just refer to anything in the area as the British Islands and you will be correct, but don’t include France because you’ll really p*** them off :-D.
Brittany? non, zut alors !
Nope. Afriad not. Brittany is attached to the European continent.
It’s all quite complex with our history. For example, Cornwall (that area in the extreme south west of England that sits immediately below Wales) used to be a seperate country from England and had it’s own Celtic language closely related to Welsh and Scottish.It was later absorbed into England.
Culturally, the people of Cornwall are much more closely related to the Scottish at the other side of England than they are to the English.
Another oddity about Cornwall is that it is geologically totally separate from the rest of the British Isles and sits on the same piece of land that France does. This is why there are minerals and metals found in Cornwall such as tungsten that aren’t seen anywhere else in the British Isles, but which are commonly found on the European mainland.
I recently watched a video narrated by a man from Cornwall and could not identify his accent, as it sounded at times to be Scot, English, Irish, etc.
Read his “about” page and discovered his origin and film location.
Cornish accent is West country. It’s country-bumpkin type, very similar to how they speak in east Anglia. I’m not sure why.
The actual Cornish language has experienced quite a revival of late.
The English, the English, the English are best. I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest.
Sums it up neatly, methinks.
If it’s na Scottish, it’s crap!
Except for their cooking.
Haggis anyone?
Address to a Haggisby Robert Burns
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
‘Bethankit’ hums.
Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.
Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!
Please translate.
Me thinks it is hilarious
Translation, starting Verse 5:
Is there that over his French ragout,
Or olio that would sicken a sow,
Or fricassee would make her vomit
With perfect disgust,
Looks down with sneering, scornful view
On such a dinner?
Poor devil! see him over his trash,
As feeble as a withered rush,
His thin legs a good whip-lash,
His fist a nut;
Through bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit.
But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his ample fist a blade,
He’ll make it whistle;
And legs, and arms, and heads will cut off
Like the heads of thistles.
You powers, who make mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill of fare,
Old Scotland wants no watery stuff,
That splashes in small wooden dishes;
But if you wish her grateful prayer,
Give her a Haggis!
“Deil tak the hindmost…”
Oy.
How offal!
A folk club I used to be a member of held a Burns Night, wi’ haggis, tatties and bashed neeps. (No Scotch for me ‘cos I was driving.) My wife, who would be a vegetarian if I let her, was not impressed with the meal….
Flanders and Swann said it all!
The Channel Islands belong geographically to the continent, so in that sense aren’t part of the British Isles. The deepest part of the Channel, the Hurd Deep, separates them from Britain.
Cornwall participated in the Variscan Orogeny, but that doesn’t make it part of France. Southern Britain does have features which continue across the Channel into France, of course, as shown by the White Cliffs of Dover and Cap Gris-Nez, but the floods which carved the Channel cuts across them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armorican_terrane#:~:text=The%20Armorican%20terrane%2C%20Armorican%20terrane,Carboniferous%20during%20the%20Variscan%20orogeny.
Yeah you are right jeff., i live in the isle of man i’m manx, i’m also british as the island is part of british isles your queen is our queen. but not the uk, that is why we were never in the eu.
You can see the 7 kingdoms of mann from the top of our mountain.
Mann, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Heaven and neptune
I also saw the fireball at 10 pm sunday the 28th of feb, that was spectacular i can tell you, looked to me that it came down in derby haven bay.
I was taking the dog down the beach in the car, i was only a half mile away and suddenly there it was top centre of my windscreen about as big as a golf ball at arms length, a ball of flame with a long tail of sparks.
2/3 seconds and it was gone, it was coming down from 1 oclock on a clock face to 7 oclock, and i would have bet it hit the sea a couple of miles out at most…
Hey I once survived saying “I love it here in England” in a Cardiff pub. Innocent mistake, the locals were nice about it.
Eric – I would not try that in the Gaelic nations – Scotland and especially Ireland can be a bit cantankerous, especially when accused of being the perfidious English.
But if you are seeking the best pub conversation on the planet, try Ireland, where the talk is quick and witty, and shimmers and sparkles like a drop of quicksilver.
Scientists say that meteor strikes will become both commoner and more intense due to climate change. With regard to the last meteor strike, Britain’s Met Office stated that, whilst individual meteor strikes couldn’t directly be linked to climate change, this event has been made far more likely by the climate crisis due to er, the overheating atmosphere changing, er, the Earth’s magnetic field, thereby attracting more iron-rich meteors. Or something.
Much worse than we thought
What dream they at night ? 😀
More funding needed.
Do they even listen to themselves when they talk that way
Obviously, those “scientists” need some professional help for their problem.
Okay, I’ll stop giggling now and go on looking for shamrocks….
Channeling my “inner warmist hysteric”:
It’s much worse now, because global warming causes the Earth to actually jump out in front of meteors – y’know, like a wino jumping in front of a car, looking for an insurance settlement?
Earth is now just like a wino. addicted to Increasing atmospheric CO2, which is causing Earth to go like, totally mental, y’know – with hotter/colder, windier/calmer, wetter/drier, crazy crazy weather!
Bed-wetters of the world, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your Depends!
Be very afraid – we’re all gonna fry/freeze, blow away/become becalmed, drown/die of thirst, and suffer all the plagues of Hades because of crazy crazy demonic weather!
If David Attenborough and Prince Charles don’t look up then it didn’t happen and its not on the ‘official’ existential threat list. Biden didn’t see it either while tumbling.
I thought that Biden promised us he would protect us from “all threats, both seen and unseen”, so I want to know how he’s doing to prevent an unknown space rock from striking a US city.
you mean bumbling surely.
The gentle cosmic rain of thousands of small comets entering the Earth’s atmosphere daily does get punctuated occasionally with a good sized rock. There are none so blind to events as those who won’t see.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/faq.htmlx
Earth’s water is probably mainly endogenous.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6507/1110
EC meteorites, which formed within the solar system’s snow line, as presumably did the bodies from which Earth accumulated, are wetter than previously thought.
I tend to be skeptical, John. Those folks measured hydrogen (H2), not water content. From their M&M, they had pieces of meteorite large enough to require crushing before pyrolysis. These could have been baked at 110 C under vacuum to remove surface-adsorbed water.
Then crushing and heating under vacuum could test for internal water content. But they didn’t do that.
Any meteoric hydrogen content is likely covalent carbonaceous or nitrogenous. These require oxidation by oxygen to produce water. We know the very primordial earth, just post-Hadean, already had water oceans. But O2 was not present and everything was reducing back then. So, where did the oxidation equivalents come from 3.8 billion years ago, to convert all that covalent hydrogen into water?
One could see some chemistry in the mantle, such as FeO + H-(C,N) –> Fe + H2O + (N,C), with water emerging from the copious volcanoes of the day. But that chemistry would require the early mantle to include significant oxidized iron. Instead it appears to have been mostly silicates.
The whole question of the origin of the oceans seems still unresolved, to me.
Yes, I was concerned by reliance on H, too, but considered the copious amounts of SO2, CO2 and CO in Hadean air.
This team found Hadean magmas surprisingly oxidized:
The oxidation state of Hadean magmas and implications for early Earth’s atmosphere
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10655
Thanks for the citation, John. Given the reliability of the result about the oxidation state of the Hadean mantle, outgassing of water is a credibly possible source of the oceans.
However, I left this comment on the site: How consistent is the notion of a fayalite–magnetite–quartz oxidation state buffer for the Hadean mantle, with the coincident and widespread presence of dissolved ferrous ion that eventually produced the banded iron formations, such as discussed here: https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1155
They have to reconcile an oxidized mantle with the coexistence of dissolved ferrous ion.
You’re welcome.
True. Jury still out on the origin of water on Earth. Minerals on Mars might help answer the question. It however is a basaltic planet.
My understanding (which is admittedly basic) is that there is some evidence that much of the water in our oceans may have originated from comets.
The deuterium/hydrogen ratio of our oceanic water matches that of the Jupiter family of comets very well, especially Comet 103P/Hartley 2 which was actively outgassing H2O when visited by a spacecraft some years ago. It does not match the D/H ratio of Comet 67P or 1P/Halley, etc. although it does match that of some asteroids.
This doesn’t prove where it did actually come from but it’s an interesting correlation to me at least FWIW!
That idea does still seem quite controversial, as search engine results produce more naysayers, than other experimental confirmation. That isn’t to say that the concept and supportive analysis is disproven.
Known Earth-crossing asteroids longer than a kilometer number 861. The main asteroid belt holds over a million of that size. One of them has our name on it.
The dino-dooming space rock measured about ten kilometers across.
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program or an off-world colony. NASA and Elon Musk are working on those, respectively.
They became extinct because they weren’t wearing face masks for protection….
Gary Larsen had a fine theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs that, to my knowledge, has never been refuted.
That works for dionsaurs and maybe pterosuars, but what about plesiosaurs and mosasaurs? Maybe the marine reptiles came up for a smoke when they breathed, but what zotzed Xiphactinus, other fish and the ammonites?
I hear Elon will be sending colonists as soon as his heavy duty truck is ready.
With any luck, they’ll just be industrial resoures upon arrival in our parts. 🙂
“Has our name on it” implies “in our lifetime,” which is improbable. “Has Earth’s name on it” is accurate. Sometime in the next hundred million years the planet may be struck by a kilometer-size rock.
Asteroids of that size hit Earth on average every 600,000 years. I don’t know when the last such strike was, but mammalian species tend to last two million years, so we might have about 1.8 million left to go, for possibly three kilometer-class impacts.
https://news.mit.edu/2003/asteroid-0910#:~:text=Asteroid%20of%20one%2Dkilometer%20or%20larger%20strikes%20Earth%20every%20600%2C000%20years,-Publication%20Date%3A&text=Of%20the%20approximately%201%2C000%20near,MIT%20Lincoln%20Laboratory%20researcher%20J.
Impacts have impacted civilization https://cosmictusk.com/category/younger-dryas-impact-evidence/
There is no valid evidence of such an impact, and all the evidence in the world against the conjecture. Nor did civilization exist then.
Certainly an interesting theory (YD impact) and no shortage of conjecture…but your last assertion re ‘no civilization at that time’) is questionable, as evidenced by Gobleki Tepe and more.
Layer III at Göbekli Tepe dates from about 11,000 years ago. The YD occurred almost 2000 years before then.
It’s a large village for its time, maybe even a “city”, but, as a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site, can’t really be considered a civilization yet. Whether besides nascent “urbanization”, Its culture included social stratification, a form of government and symbolic communication, eg writing. There may well have been priests rather than shamans, and some system of rulers and ruled. There is art, but so far no evidence of writing. Art has been around since the Paleolithic. Without pottery, no potter’s wheel.
Its permanent population can only be guessed at, as it may well have been a pilgimage site.
The civilisation that built the stone city at the south end of Lake Titikaka was there 13,000 years ago, and some say the water erosion of the Sphinx shows at least 13k age BP.
Civilisations must be far older than is popularly thought. But we think we. Are so-o-o clever.
In our solar neighborhood we are probably the least developed planet and considered Hell by the rest. We are still killing each other! How primitive is that? They might say we are “not yet civilised”. It’s embarrassing. We can do better than this.
Second one in the last month!
Maybe Gaia has a message for James Lovelock.
correct grifter, i saw the one at 10pm sunday the 28th of feb, and it was most impressive, and close i would have bet anyone it went into derby haven bay within 2 miles of me, it was as big as a golf ball held at arms length, just appeared out of nowhere for 2/3 seconds big ball of flame with a long tail of sparks, the musta been big sparks tho then poof gone,….. and all in complete silence, even tho others claim there was a boom i didnt hear it, but there again i was in the car.
Fireballs rock!
That’d be Deep Purple.
If Musk would send one of his trucks to space, that would be Space Truckin.
Climate change made the meteor much worse than it would have been.
On a related subject, WUWT has gone out of its way for many years to diminish the validity of the Younger Dryas Impact Event which caused the Younger Dryas. This is a terrible shame and cruel irony. The YDIE team is publishing real science which undermines the “tipping point” meme of the alarmists, since it proves earth’s most dramatic climate swings are not the effect of “closed loop” earth system. Arguing about Global Warming while the YDIE is proven, is like arguing over the radio station while your car is on the train tracks. I respect Anthony, but his obstinance and willful ignorance in this respect disregards the efforts of un-politicized true scientists with the evidence to explain the most important climate event in human history. You can find every last paper on the subject since 2007 at my blog here (which WUWT graciously links on the blog roll) https://cosmictusk.com/younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis-bibliography-and-paper-archive/
Science doesn’t do proof. The YDIH, if it may be dignified by the term “hypothesis”, has been thoroughly shown false in ever detail, repeatedly.
Anthony’s WUWT has published arguments and evidence from the YDIH proponents and opponents
Yes. If anything WUWT’s editorial policy has leaned too far in favor of the totally discredited speculation.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265132201_The_Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis_A_cosmic_catastrophe
ABSTRACT: In this paper we review the evidence for the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (YDIH), which proposes that at 12.9k cal a BP North America, South America, Europe and the Middle East were subjected to some sort of extraterrestrial event. This purported event is proposed as a catastrophic process responsible for: terminal Pleistocene environmental changes (onset of YD cooling, continent-scale wildfires); extinction of late Pleistocene mammals; and demise of the Clovis ‘culture’ in North America, the earliest well-documented, continent-scale settlement of the region. The basic physics in the YDIH is not in accord with the physics of impacts nor the basic laws of physics. No YD boundary (YDB) crater, craters or other direct indicators of an impact are known. Age control is weak to non-existent at 26 of the 29 localities claimed to have evidence for the YDIH. Attempts to reproduce the results of physical and geochemical analyses used to support the YDIH have failed or show that many indicators are not unique to an impact nor to 12.9k cal a BP. The depositional environments of purported indicators at most sites tend to concentrate particulate matter and probably created many ‘YDB zones’. Geomorphic, stratigraphic and fire records show no evidence of any sort of catastrophic changes in the environment at or immediately following the YDB. Late Pleistocene extinctions varied in time and across space. Archeological data provide no indication of population decline, demographic collapse or major adaptive shifts at or just after 12.9 ka. The data and the hypotheses generated by YDIH proponents are contradictory, inconsistent and incoherent.
And that’s putting it mildly.
A Blind Test of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0155470
AbstractThe Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) states that North America was devastated by some sort of extraterrestrial event ~12,800 calendar years before present. Two fundamental questions persist in the debate over the YDIH: Can the results of analyses for purported impact indicators be reproduced? And are the indicators unique to the lower YD boundary (YDB), i.e., ~12.8k cal yrs BP? A test reported here presents the results of analyses that address these questions. Two different labs analyzed identical splits of samples collected at, above, and below the ~12.8ka zone at the Lubbock Lake archaeological site (LL) in northwest Texas. Both labs reported similar variation in levels of magnetic micrograins (>300 mg/kg >12.8ka and <11.5ka, but <150 mg/kg 12.8ka to 11.5ka). Analysis for magnetic microspheres in one split, reported elsewhere, produced very low to nonexistent levels throughout the section. In the other split, reported here, the levels of magnetic microspherules and nanodiamonds are low or nonexistent at, below, and above the YDB with the notable exception of a sample <11,500 cal years old. In that sample the claimed impact proxies were recovered at abundances two to four orders of magnitude above that from the other samples. Reproducibility of at least some analyses are problematic. In particular, no standard criteria exist for identification of magnetic spheres. Moreover, the purported impact proxies are not unique to the YDB.
George, WUWT is tolerant of different views, that is why WUWT is so successful. You might have noticed that my views on some subjects differ from some of the other regular contributors. Anthony might have strong views on some topics, but If a new paper appears on the Younger Dryas which appears to boost evidence for the impact hypothesis by all means submit a story.
Now it is, it was very intolerant before for years anyone who questioned the luke-warmer stance was a goner, and lots are still goners like the slayers who are right, and have always been right.
The luke-warmers are the gate-keepers of the rghe, always have been always will be, they are fake skeptics and the reason y’all lost the climate debate.
well thats luke warmers for ya.
Those blinders only allow for CO2 viewing, remember.
Unprecedented warming over the UK !!
I just posted this very relevant tweet re the Planetary Defence Conference next month. I’ve watched the last three and they’ve always been riveting because it’s Paul Chodas of JPL running it and so he designs potential scenarios that are really true to life. The delegates have to deflect it in time using real physics and within the limitations of our current rockets/tech. So it’s a grown up practice exercise, focussing minds to save the planet and not a dumbed-down ‘sci comm’ évent with cartoons and cuddly toys like Asteroid Day is.
https://twitter.com/scute1133/status/1374137805086068737?s=21
It has been proven by 97% of the world’s scientists, which includes scientologists, global warming attracts meteorites to the earth, so we can expect more such events in the future, unless a new chilling phase is coming.
The IPCC will be adding this item to its list for use by scare-mongers
COVID, forest fires, floods, etc., already are on the IPCC list.
Tee-shirt text: ASTEROIDS. Nature’s way of asking “How’s your space program going?”